Question: if the moon fell would we all die
Comments
-
Hi aless,
Mat’s right that it’s a good thing we’re here after things have sorted themselves out. Early on in Earth’s history, about 4 billion years ago, there was a period of “late heavy bombardment” (http://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Late_Heavy_Bombardment) when all the inner planets, including Earth, were being hit by nasty large asteroids all the time. Earth would not have been a nice place to be.
-
The moon is alredy falling. It is called orbit. The moon is falling towards earth but because the earth, the moon, the sun and all things gravity it is always justmissing. Themoon is not realy moving in a perfect circle more like many straight lines as it plunges towards earth, misses and tries again. Earth does it to the sun and the moondoes it to the earth.
Edward
god7
You mean if the moon fell to the earth? Yes. That would be a bad day. Things similar in size crashing into each other is usually news. Except in sumo wrestling.
It’s unlikely to happen. The moon is in orbit around the earth. What that means is that it’s moving very fast around us. It’s being attracted to the earth by gravity, so keeps falling towards us. It never gets any closer because it’s moving so fast. That’s what an orbit is – constantly falling, but in a circle.
There’s no reason for that to change. The earth and the moon are both super-heavy and in space things don’t slow down because there’s no air or other stuff to collide with them. We keep on moving just as we are.
It’s also interesting that we (humans) have come along so late in Earth’s history. We’re here after the earth and moon and other things have had a long time to sort themselves out. We’re in a *steady state* – the planets are all orbiting in certain ways, everything has calmed down.
This means we can look up at the moon at night and just enjoy how amazingly beautiful it is without worrying something bad is going to happen.
0